Basics of the Media Layer for iOS App Development

The Media layer in iOS apps contains support for graphics, audio, and video technologies. This layer has the following components which allow you to manage music and movie files, and so on along with their metadata.

Assets Library: Provides access to the photos and videos in the user’s photo library.

A MIDI interface is provided for connection with musical instruments.

Integrated record and playback of audio is provided as follows:

Through a media player that allows you to manipulate iTunes playlists

Via lower-level components for

Managing audio playback and recording

Managing positional audio playback (such as surround sound)

Playing system alert sounds

Vibrating a device

Buffering streamed audio content

Airplay streaming

Video services provided include playing movie files from your application or streaming them from the network and capturing video and incorporating it into your application. Once again, this functionality is provided in several ways: from a high-level media player to lower-level components that give you fine-grained control.

Image handling operations include creation, display and storage of pictures, and filters and feature detection.

Also, this layer is the one that provides support for text and font handling — such as layout and rendering.

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